5. TELEVISION Stay off it. Your job is to be in the kitchen making or supervising meals for the paying customers. I see a chef on TV, it's like you painted a big target on your restaurant — I know you are not minding the store, and the cab company is on speed dial.

6. CRÈME BRÛLÉE I've got a new argument against this cliché: global warming. Donate your butane torches to Haiti and serve me a nice a custard dessert. And how about butterscotch pudding?

7. ONION SOUP A few tips: when you do the whole steer, make beef stock out of the shins and feet. Don't add too much salt. How about a crouton with some crunch?

8. TAGLIATELLE BOLOGNESE Sure it's good. But do you really think you can make it better than Dante de Magistris or Barbara Lynch? If so, go for it.

9. MEMO TO SERVERS "Are you still working on that?" is a tip-killer. People are dining out. If you make them think of working, they will think of paychecks and layoffs.

10. SWEET-POTATO FRIES They don't get crisp. Not until after they burn a lot.

12. THE WAR IN IRAQ IS OVER Where are my refugee restaurants? If I don't see any results in 2010, we're going to have to end some more wars. I would hate to see us lining up for North Korean or Libyan food, so let's get those Iraqi restaurants going, okay?

13. THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR HAS BEEN OVER FOR MORE THAN 110 YEARS Where are my Filipino restaurants?

14. THE PLASMA TVS I'm not asking you to donate them to Goodwill. How about some less annoying content than sound-free talking heads on CNN?

REVIEW: BONCHON | August 10, 2012 What am I doing in this basement in Harvard Square, reviewing the second location of a multi-national franchise chain?

REVIEW: CARMELINA'S | July 25, 2012 After a good run with "Italian tapas" under the name Damiano (a play on the given name of chef-owner Damien "Domenic" DiPaola), this space has been rechristened as Carmelina's — after the chef's mother and his first restaurant, opened when he was an undergraduate in Western Mass — and the menu reconfigured to feature more entrées.

REVIEW: TONIC | July 06, 2012 Bad restaurant idea number 16: let's do a neighborhood bar-bistro where there already is one.

REVIEW: HAPPY’S BAR AND KITCHEN | June 20, 2012 In a year of bad restaurant ideas, one of the better bets is to have a successful fancy-food chef try a downscale restaurant.